The National Heavy Vehicle Regulator (NHVR) is beginning a trial for two unstaffed out-of-hours weighbridges in New South Wales, beginning this month.
Launched to assist road safety and compliance, the weighbridges will allow truckies to check their vehicle mass at any hour with the aim of reducing overloading.
One weighbridge is located at the Halfway Creek HVSS, on the Pacific Highway 32kms south of Grafton, and the second one is the Daroobalgie HVSS near Parkes and will operate at both north and southbound sites.
NHVR chief operations officer Paul Salvati says the pilot aims to create a safer industry and safer roads.
“Effective from the beginning of April, two weighbridges will be open outside of operational hours on key transportation routes in NSW, allowing drivers to check the weight of their vehicle and ensure their movements are safe and efficient,” Salvati says.
“These sites are being offered on a trial basis to complement existing public weighing facilities and we will be closely monitoring this pilot, to evaluate its effectiveness.
“With the weighbridges being open while unstaffed, we’d like to remind drivers to utilise these sites in a safe and productive manner.
“Throughout this pilot, we want to see these sites remain free from vandalism and damage – in the past, incidents like these resulted in many weighbridges being gated across NSW.”
The NHVR says although drivers still need to conduct a pre-departure inspection of their vehicle to ensure it’s roadworthy, the load is restrained correctly and compliant with mass limits, it believes drivers would benefit from seeing their vehicle mass to support ongoing compliance.
The regulator says that with the increase in adoption of On-Board Mass (OBM) technology on vehicles, it regularly sees drivers validating the OBM when stopped at a safety station weighbridge.
“We want to encourage heavy vehicle drivers and operators to utilise these designated weighbridge facilities to assist in their compliance,” Salvati says.
“Overloading a vehicle not only jeopardises road infrastructure but also poses significant safety risks to motorists.
“All parties in the supply chain have a primary duty to ensure the safety of their transport activities.”